=Paper= {{Paper |id=Vol-1628/nht_paper_3 |storemode=property |title=Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space |pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1628/nht_paper_3.pdf |volume=Vol-1628 |authors=Tom Blount,Jonathan Scott,David E. Millard |dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ht/BlountSM16 }} ==Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space== https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1628/nht_paper_3.pdf
      Yarncraft: Location Aware Narratives in Virtual Space

                     Tom Blount                              Jonathan Scott                        David E. Millard
            Web and Internet Science                   Web and Internet Science               Web and Internet Science
            Electronics and Computer                   Electronics and Computer               Electronics and Computer
                     Science                                    Science                                Science
            University of Southampton                  University of Southampton              University of Southampton
          Southampton, United Kingdom                Southampton, United Kingdom            Southampton, United Kingdom
          tb12g09@ecs.soton.ac.uk js3g10@ecs.soton.ac.uk                                      dem@ecs.soton.ac.uk

ABSTRACT                                                                physical location can provide readers with a more immersive ex-
Location-aware narratives are a form of hypertext in which the path     perience [9]. Location-aware narratives have been developed to
of the narrative is determined by the reader’s physical location. In    aid education and learning by providing an engaging link between
this paper we adapt an existing model of location-aware sculptural      practice and theory [1, 12], to create interactive games [3, 4] and
hypertext to make it suitable for navigating in virtual space, and      simply to tell stories about a particular location [5, 11].
create an extension to an existing virtual world to demonstrate how
hyper-narratives written in this framework may be consumed in           Virtual worlds are computer-simulated environments in which users
both physical and virtual space. We demonstrate the unique po-          can interact with one another and the environment itself [8] for a va-
tential of virtual spaces by not only adapting the narrative to match   riety of purposes, from meeting and socialising with other users [7],
the reader’s location, but by adapting the reader’s location to match   to learning and education tools [2], to business applications such
the narrative. In doing so, we lay the groundwork for an experi-        as providing a new means of tele-conferencing [6]. Virtual social
ment into whether the immersive effects of location-aware hyper-        worlds have also been used in the context of presenting an innova-
narratives can be heightened by leveraging the inherent benefits of     tive way of telling narratives, particularly in games [13], many of
virtual worlds.                                                         which can be considered as hypernarratives themselves.

                                                                        Millard et al. have proposed a model of sculptural hypertext, suit-
Categories and Subject Descriptors                                      able for location-aware narratives, that links existing theory with
H.1 [Models and Principles]: General                                    observable structures of hypertext, and opens the possibility of mov-
                                                                        ing towards a standardised format for viewers and authoring tools
Keywords                                                                [10]. This model consists of three structures — canyons, deltas
narrative; location-aware; virtual spaces; virtual worlds;              and plains — that can be combined to represent all possible pat-
                                                                        terns of location-aware narrative. These three structures are built
                                                                        up of atomic “cards”, using different combinations of constraints
1.    INTRODUCTION                                                      and links between them. In canyons, they form a linear sequence
In this paper we adapt Millard et. al.’s location-aware model of        with transitions from one page to another; in deltas they form a
sculptural hypertext for use in virtual worlds. This involves modi-     branching sequence in which each page can link to multiple pages;
fications to the GeoYarn format to allow for stories that are usable    and in plains they remain “floating” unconnected, and can be ac-
on a range of clients with different levels of information availabil-   cessed in any order the reader chooses. Constraints (such as being
ity; the ability for stories to define complex location types; and      read in a particular order, being read at a particular time, or being
“events”, which modify the world in response to the story.              read in a particular location) can be imposed on these structures to
                                                                        build more complex structures.
2.    BACKGROUND
Hypertextual narratives are digital narratives that do not necessar-    3.    YARNCRAFT
ily need to be read in a constrained order and may branch in mul-       Yarncraft is an attempt to leverage Millard et al.’s location-aware
tiple places, allowing for many different tellings and re-tellings. A   model of sculptural hypertext and in particular to adapt the frame-
location-aware hypertextual narrative can detect the reader’s posi-     work of the GeoYarn client they developed to allow arbitrary nar-
tion in space (through, for example, their mobile phone’s GPS),         ratives to be traversed in either physical or virtual space.
allowing an author to guide a user around a specific set of locations
with which they tell their story. Linking a narrative to the reader’s   For our example, we tailor one of the stories marked up in their
                                                                        framework for use in a physical space around the city of Southamp-
                                                                        ton to be used instead in Minecraft1 , a creative sandbox virtual
                                                                        world that allows players to explore a stylised, procedurally-generated
                                                                        environment, build structures and artwork, and interact with friendly
                                                                        and hostile non-player characters (NPCs).

                                                                        This was a two-stage process: firstly, tailoring the framework to be
                                                                        suitable for virtual locations in general (and particularly for use
                                                                        1 http://minecraft.net/
      "locations": [                                                           "locations": [
          {                                                                        {
              "type": "TagLocation",                                                "type": "TagLocation",
              "tag": "indoors"                                                         "tag": "Big Ben"
          }                                                                        },
      ]                                                                            {
                                                                                    "type": "TagLocation",
                                                                                       "tag": "Clock tower"
              Figure 1: Example of a TagLocation                                   },
                                                                                   {
      "locations": [                                                                "type": "TagLocation",
          {                                                                            "tag": "Building"
              "type": "TagLocation",                                               }
              "nearby": "water",                                               ]
              "distance": 5
          }
      ]                                                                               Figure 3: Example of fallback locations


Figure 2: Example of a TagLocation with an optional distance             device or set of devices, assumptions can be made about the avail-
parameter                                                                able hardware and sensors (for example, that a hypertext designed
                                                                         to be consumed on a mobile phone will be provided with GPS coor-
                                                                         dinates). However location-aware narratives in virtual worlds have
within Minecraft) and secondly, developing a Minecraft mod (a
                                                                         access to many more potential information sources at higher levels
modification to the base game) to read the framework and present
                                                                         of accuracy, without the requirement of (additional) sensory hard-
the narrative to the user.
                                                                         ware. For example, weather data, light level, noise level, as well as
                                                                         more abstract or esoteric information such as the emotional state of
Our modifications to the framework primarily concerned four ar-
                                                                         nearby people, or the number of spiders within 100m. When de-
eas: the level of abstraction available when defining locations, the
                                                                         signing for a much wider range of devices, platforms and worlds,
composition of complex location definitions, the ability to handle
                                                                         with a wide range of capabilities and features, it is important to be
concepts and locations described in a story that may be undefined
                                                                         able to provide the intended experience using alternative sensors
in a particular virtual world, and the ability for stories to trigger
                                                                         when the preferred sensor is unavailable.
events which modify the conditions of the virtual world.
                                                                         In our modification of the GeoYarn format, locations are stored as
3.1    Abstract location information                                     an ordered list of objects. Each location in the list is one possi-
Millard et al.’s framework allows for two types of locations to be       ble match for the location required by the given page. A client
used: precise locations, that map to specific areas defined by poly-     should attempt to match the earliest listed location that they have
gons of latitude and longitude points; and abstract locations that are   the appropriate sensors for. This mechanism allows authors to de-
defined by strings such as “Big Ben”, or concepts such as “quiet”,       fine several “fallback” locations that steadily become more general.
“green” or “crowded”.
                                                                         For example, in the example shown in 3, the page would ideally
Due to the fact that precise locations cannot be generalised across      take place near Big Ben2 , though for physical locations outside of
physical and/or virtual worlds (aside from exceptional cases) our        Westminster any clock tower would suffice, and for virtual worlds
proposal primarily concerns additions to abstract location types.        which have no clock tower, or locations that have no concept of a
                                                                         clock tower, any building would suffice.
Figure 2 shows a tag location with an optional distance parameter,
that allows pages to be read when the user is in the vicinity of, in     This mechanism can ensure that stories are consumable on a large
this case, water. While we specify this distance in meters in the        range of devices. However, this can still fail, either because fall-
framework, it is up to the client/mod to interpret this value and        backs have not been defined or because they are still too specific
scale it as necessary.                                                   for a particular client to interpret (for example, if a client attempts
                                                                         to interpret a story designed for a very specific world).
3.2    Undefined locations
One issue faced by location-aware narratives, both physical and vir-     When these failures occur, and clients are unable to attempt to
tual, is the possibility that there may be no appropriate locations in   match any of the possible locations, the user should be presented
the nearby vicinity. For example, part of the story may be set in a      with a map whereby they can define a location that best approxi-
factory, but the user may struggle to access this if they are travers-   mates the query.
ing the narrative in a national park. Virtual spaces face this same
problem, but a further step removed: the very concept of a factory       3.3    Combined locations
may not even exist in a particular virtual world. While this can be      As well as allowing authors to define fallback locations, our addi-
mitigated in part by allowing authors to specify suitable worlds for     tions to the GeoYarn format allow for the use of “AndLocation”,
the consumption of their narrative, a truly generalisable framework      “OrLocation” and “NotLocation”. These operators allow for the
must provide mechanisms for handling this issue.                         composition of simple locations to create more specificity, without
Similarly, when designing a location-aware hypertext for a fixed         2 The Great Bell of the clock in Elizabeth Tower, Westminster
      "locations": [
          {
              "type": "AndLocation",
              "location1": [
                  {
                      "type": "TagLocation",
                      "tag": "indoors"
                  }
              ],
              "location2": [
                  {
                      "type": "TagLocation",
                      "level": "noisy"
                  }
              ]
          }
      ]
                                                                             Figure 5: “A place where people gather”

Figure 4: Example of building complex locations using an And-
Location


requiring each client to provide the full definitions of these loca-
tions.

The location in 4 defines a noisy, indoor area. Without the use
of AndLocation, this would require each client to provide a tag
representing this type of location.

Note also that the locations defined as part of AndLocation, Or-
Location, and NotLocation are also defined using arrays, and ex-
hibit the same fallback behaviour as other location arrays. In this
case, it would be pragmatic to specify fallbacks for systems that do
not support the "noisy" or "indoors" tags.

3.4    Events
Location-aware narratives based in the physical world allow the
story to be adapted to the user’s location either through branching
the story as the user moves through space, or by modifying the               Figure 6: “Suddenly, a crowd appeared”
tone of a page to suit the user’s current location. However, with a
virtual world, the world itself can also be adapted as the narrative
progresses. This can be done to shape the general aesthetic and en-
vironment of the virtual world to be in keeping with the narrative
(as a whole, or at a specific point in time); for example, altering
the weather or light levels. This can also be leveraged if the au-
thor wishes to trigger specific events during the course of the story.
In Figure 5 the player is instructed to go to a place where people
gather. Due to the state of mind of the protagonist of the story, it
appears deserted at first. But, when the player arrives in Figure 6, a
crowd of friendly NPC villagers appear around them.                      "events": [
                                                                             {
Figure 7 shows the implementation of the “spawn” event, which                    "type": "spawn",
allows the creation of NPCs in the virtual world. The “villager”                 "npc": "villager",
can be mapped directly to the villager NPCs available in Minecraft               "number": 150
but implementations for other virtual worlds would need to map               }
this concept on to some acceptable alternative.                          ]

If this story is to be played in the physical world, then these events
                                                                               Figure 7: Example of a spawn event
would not execute and so they should be used to optionally strengthen
or demonstrate the content of the story, rather than as a replacement
for it.
3.5     Client                                                             5.   REFERENCES
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While this is an early proof of concept, we hope that the additions
made here provide further incentive for people to develop location-
aware hypernarratives in new and innovative ways.